1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to management of radio frequency (RF) spectrum use in wireless communication environments.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems are employed in network communication environments. The growth of the Broadband network communication market continues to exceed expectations and is expected to reach over 500 million users by the year 2005. High speed Internet access has enabled the development of new applications and new usage models for traditional and non-traditional services and applications, particularly in the emerging Digital Home, Enterprise and small and medium business (SMB) networking environments. An example of this is new classes of multimedia devices with support for high definition television (HDTV) and high speed Internet access.
Currently, there are numerous Router based products and Wireless Gateway products that may be employed to form the bridge between high speed broadband access networks (e.g., Cable, DSL) and local wired and 802.11 Wi-Fi networks in the home and other locations. Technology for these products is specific to broadband access method, embedded controllers, network address translation (NAT), security and routing software employed. There are many methods and approaches available to connect high speed devices into a wired network environment using Ethernet based protocol and cabling systems. However, there are many challenges implementing the same architecture using a wireless medium to provide roaming and location independent placement of multimedia and other Digital Home devices such as storage, displays and I/O peripherals.
In a modern wireless communication environment, there may be numerous types of peripherals and devices that wirelessly connect to each other and/or to the network within the environment and communicate over unlicensed exempt RF frequencies. Included among the various wireless technologies that may coexist within the same wireless communication environment are those network related wireless technologies that are implemented as part of wireless wide area networks (WWANs), wireless local area networks (WLANs), wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs) and wireless personal area networks (WPANs). There may also be other wireless devices (e.g., cordless phones, microwave ovens, military radar, etc.) transmitting or receiving information using non-network wireless technologies within range of the network-related devices and peripherals. The possible operating frequencies of these various network and non-network related technologies often overlap within the available unlicensed wireless radio frequency (RF) spectrum, creating the potential for interference between the devices. At the same time, the proliferation and deployment of most wireless devices is in the unlicensed spectrum, e.g., cordless phones, WLANs, WPANs, etc. Because the unlicensed wireless RF spectrum is unregulated and unprotected by regulations, there is a much higher probability of encountering interference problems.
Examples of specific network related wireless technologies that at least in part utilize the unlicensed RF spectrum include, but are not limited to, WLAN technologies such as 802.11 Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) (2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz); WPAN based technologies such as Bluetooth (2.4 GHz) and UWB (3.1-10.6 GHz); WWAN based technologies such as GSM/EDGE, HSDPA, W-CDMA, CDMA-2000 (800-900 MHz, 1800-1900 MHz and 2.1 GHz); WMAN based technologies such as 802.16 WiMax (2-11 GHz), etc.
In an attempt to address potential interference between 802.11a WLAN network communications and other devices (e.g., other WiFi WLAN access point segments, and primary-use devices such as military radar systems or satellite devices), the IEEE 802.11h+d standard was developed to implement dynamic frequency selection (DFS) and transmit power control (TPC). DFS detects other devices using the same RF channel and is used by a wireless network access point to switch the RF channel of current WLAN operation to another RF channel to avoid interference. TPC adjusts RF transmit power to reduce interference with other devices and is used by a wireless network access point to manage power consumption, and/or to control range between access points and wireless devices.